Farmer Dave Colling, ex of the Ripley area, made a presentation recently to the Drayton, Ontario area and said that, due to stray electricity, noise and other factors, if you’re a farmer who is leasing land for wind turbines, “In the long run, you’re going to wish you never had them built on your land.” The stray electricity is akin to “living in a microwave” he says.

And now over to Colette McLean of the Harrow area, who despite her objections to the proposed wind turbine installation under construction near her (she herself was offered leases for turbines on her land, but turned down the ‘opportunity’), now has to live with the turbines. “It’s my health, my family’s health and the viability of our farm and the value of our farm,” she recently told the CBC. “Everything my husband, my son and I have worked for, is going to be gone.”

And then there is Wisconsin farmer Scott Smrynka who has actually measured the stray voltage in his dairy barn, and notes the reduction in milk production, problems with calving, and the fact that his cows and calves are dying from mysterious causes, and show abnormal hearts and kidneys at autopsy.

Put the wind turbines where the wind is, not where the people and the animals are.

Somewhere among the pie-in-the-sky claims made by Prowind about how the wind turbine developments will actually add to the bucolic nature of the rural landscape, is the statement that farmers can use their land right up to within a couple of feet of the base for each turbine, and that the base doesn’t take up much space.

Here is a photo taken by the CBC of the base for a turbine being constructed right now near Harrow, Ontario. THAT is how big the base really is (some of it will be underground when they backfill the earth). This base is for a turbine that is 120 meters high—the ones planned for North Gower are much larger.